Canada E-Commerce Suffering From Consumer Gap

The July edition of The Business Review Canada is now live!

When it comes to the digital world, Canadians are ahead of the game. They’re embracing social media, watching videos online and using smartphones and tablets everywhere. However, Canadian businesses are slacking when it comes to e-commerce and mobile marketing. In a series of interviews with Dx3 Conversation Studio Speakers, Ron Tite (marketing specialist and local Canadian) spoke about the consumer gap in Canadian e-commerce.

“There is a massive consumer gap that exists in this country,” explains Tite. “On one hand you have consumers who have absolute wonderful power in their pockets; they’re ready to buy online.”

He makes a good point. The following statistics showcase the state of Canadian connectedness:

• 27.4 million Canadians are online, which is equivalent to 80 percent of the population.

• Canada is fourth in the world for internet impact; not to mention number one when it comes to social media impact.

• Each person in Canada watches one hour per day of online videos - EVERYDAY.

• 70 percent of Canadians use mobile devices.

• 1 in 4 would give up TV over their smartphone.

However, the problem in Canada is that businesses are still trying to direct consumers to traditional point of purchase locations rather than meeting them where they want to do business.

“The gap that exists is with that reality and with the business offering to meet that consumer demand, and they are not there,” Tite explains.

In other words, Canadian businesses are not equipped with the resources to meet consumer demand, leaving opportunity for American and Global retailers to engage with Canadians consumers.

And if that happens: “They’ll eat the lunch of every Canadian business in the category.”

So how can Canadians bridge the gap between e-commerce and consumer spending?

According to Tite, “The heart to driving Canadian digital businesses is partnership. We don’t have the budget to go out and do everything on our own. So what you want to do is partner with similar companies, like-minded companies who are going after the same people, who want to tell the same story.  Come together and pull your resources and help each other out and then you can make much more of an impact.”